Disney's Customer Service have you noticed a change this year

[tramps’lady]

I can't help but wonder, am I the only one having issues with Disney's guest relations this year.

I live about 90 minutes away and go to the Fort quite frequently as it makes it easier to visit the parks. we go about once a month for a week.

Since reopening, i have been told I have problems with my magic band and charging and opening doors, etc because I have to many. ( I have around 20 active) I understand that but every time it just feels like they don't fix the issue but blame the customer for it.

we also have APs so park pass reservations have become an issue. all my park days are during resort stays but I keep getting the dreaded you have reached your limit message. When I call, i'm told you have to many resort stay reservations (again there is that it's your fault) they fix it and then it happens again. The final answer in November was to unlink every stay past April 2021. seems reasonable and we did that. but it hasn't fixed it and I'm back to limit reached.

then I decide I want to change some site types for some stays at the Fort. get on the phone to call about 3 reservations in Aug, Sept and Oct. 5 different accounts in my name, no adults or kids on any of my reservations, some not even in my name anymor, but we get done what I wanted. then I discover they canceled my May/June reservation. I call, well, sorry but someone called and canceled it wasn't us. Wasn't me either. We can rebook but it will cost you more money now.

I'm about to give up but as they say it's my happy place.

what has been your experiences this summer?

sorry for the book, I know 'first world' problems. just wondering if anyone else has encountered this change in customer service or has it been that way all along.

PS....we have had some great customer service interactions with in park CM just really seems to be the phone people.

 

[skeeter31]

The call centers in Celebration and Tampa are still operating on a skeleton staff on site and having most staff work from home. It’s much harder for the CMs to connect with their supervisors or bounce ideas off eachother as they had done in the past. Plus, there is always a lot of cross-area phone queue pick ups in the call centers, and when they used to be in the centers it was easier to handle these as you could ask coworkers questions if you were stumped. But now, working from home, if you’re trained on, say, add on experiences but are picking up a call from the AP VIP queue to help out, you aren’t the most proficient in that area and can flounder.

I’m giving the call center CMs a lot of slack during this difficult time. On top of all of those issues, they’ve also been seeing a huge uptick in the amount of calls they’ve been dealing with since March and an increase in angry customer calls as well. The in person call center, at least the one here in Tampa as that’s the one I was based out of, are amazing and such an informative place for the CMs to be stationed. Working from home is definitely a challenge for these CMs who were used to having all of that information at their fingertips. Plus, there were also a good amount of layoffs that effected the call centers as well.

As to the magicband issues. I’ve had that issue now for the past 5+ years. Always have issues getting into rooms or through the gates at resorts. Always told I have too many bands. The last time I checked into OKW I had a great front desk CM who actually went through my magicbands and deleted all of the band I had deactivated over the years. That has worked wonders. Now if I could just figure out how to begin getting texts that my room is ready again. Haven’t gotten a text from Disney in about 4 years now. I get the emails, but never the text.

 

[_19disnA]

We were at Disney last year. Some of our planning involved calling the Disney 800#. I found that some people you get on the phone are far more knowledgeable and willing to assist you then others. I don't know if people work at a call center or perhaps from home (or some combination), but clearly some had NO idea how to help with what we asked and didn't want to bother looking up something. I think some just guess at an answer so they don't have to do any research. Haven't been to Disney this year so can't say if covid has made any difference. If I got someone on the phone who seemed to not know what I was asking, I would just hang up and call back later and get a different person who was more helpful.

That is similar to every company I have ever had to deal with over the phone. Some employees are very helpful and some just don't want to be bothered and seem to lack training on what they are expected to do.

 

[yulilin3]

We were at Disney last year. Some of our planning involved calling the Disney 800#. I found that some people you get on the phone are far more knowledgeable and willing to assist you then others. I don't know if people work at a call center or perhaps from home (or some combination), but clearly some had NO idea how to help with what we asked and didn't want to bother looking up something. I think some just guess at an answer so they don't have to do any research. Haven't been to Disney this year so can't say if covid has made any difference. If I got someone on the phone who seemed to not know what I was asking, I would just hang up and call back later and get a different person who was more helpful.

It's a combination of call center and home

 

[skeeter31]

We were at Disney last year. Some of our planning involved calling the Disney 800#. I found that some people you get on the phone are far more knowledgeable and willing to assist you then others. I don't know if people work at a call center or perhaps from home (or some combination), but clearly some had NO idea how to help with what we asked and didn't want to bother looking up something. I think some just guess at an answer so they don't have to do any research. Haven't been to Disney this year so can't say if covid has made any difference. If I got someone on the phone who seemed to not know what I was asking, I would just hang up and call back later and get a different person who was more helpful.

That’s due to cross training and having to answer multiple queues when the phones back up. A lot of times it’s the IT support staff or back of house staff that normally only answer the calls from resort front desk staff that have to pick up the lines that are overwhelmed.

 

[tramps’lady]

The call centers in Celebration and Tampa are still operating on a skeleton staff on site and having most staff work from home. It’s much harder for the CMs to connect with their supervisors or bounce ideas off eachother as they had done in the past. Plus, there is always a lot of cross-area phone queue pick ups in the call centers, and when they used to be in the centers it was easier to handle these as you could ask coworkers questions if you were stumped. But now, working from home, if you’re trained on, say, add on experiences but are picking up a call from the AP VIP queue to help out, you aren’t the most proficient in that area and can flounder.

I’m giving the call center CMs a lot of slack during this difficult time. On top of all of those issues, they’ve also been seeing a huge uptick in the amount of calls they’ve been dealing with since March and an increase in angry customer calls as well. The in person call center, at least the one here in Tampa as that’s the one I was based out of, are amazing and such an informative place for the CMs to be stationed. Working from home is definitely a challenge for these CMs who were used to having all of that information at their fingertips. Plus, there were also a good amount of layoffs that effected the call centers as well.

that's why I apologized to the lady last night about being upset about the canceled reservation and got off the phone. I was getting so frustrated with the whole thing I wanted to cry. I told her I knew it wasn't her that caused it and I needed to take some time before trying to resolve this issue. I'm sure they get a lot of people who aren't happy and chose other ways to express themselves.

 

[yulilin3]

Wdw.guest.communications@disneyworld.com
This is the email to get someone from guest relations that might be able to help you. You can escalate cases through this email. Make sure to leave a phone number for them to call you

 

[tramps’lady]

Wdw.guest.communications@disneyworld.com
This is the email to get someone from guest relations that might be able to help you. You can escalate cases through this email. Make sure to leave a phone number for them to call you

I think that's the next step. In November I went to GR at AK and spoke to a manager. that's when they unlinked everything but that seems to have caused it's own problems

probably have to break down and get a new email and start a brand new account with Disney, as that was one suggestion.

My app shows everything correct but disney computers have everything everywhere. no people on the reservation, reservations in other guests names. It's crazy

Thanks

 

[Best Aunt]

The “you have too many Magic Bands” line has been going on long before the pandemic. You would hear it from CMs on the phone, at resort front desks, etc.

 

[lovethattink]

We get the too many mb line too. However, we noticed if they don’t scan a mb at security when we’re checking into the resort and we just give an ID, the magic bands work without issue.

That stinks that your future stays were removed. Was that because you were instructed to unlink them?

 

[tramps’lady]

We get the too many mb line too. However, we noticed if they don’t scan a mb at security when we’re checking into the resort and we just give an ID, the magic bands work without issue.

That stinks that your future stays were removed. Was that because you were instructed to unlink them?

Disney unlinked them thinking it would solve the park pass limit problem.....it didn't. in December when I talked to guest services he said my reservations showed no guests which would account for not being able to make park reservations but none of those reservations had park reservations attached as I would need to renew my AP.

I told one CM quit selling special magic bands then because then we wouldn't buy them and have to many to mess up their system

 

[cgattis]

I told one CM quit selling special magic bands then because then we wouldn't buy them and have to many to mess up their system

Well, that’s almost true....I mean, if they hadn’t sent everyone a whole set of bands for every trip (I know, eventually they made it easier to decline and now that’s over, but...), everyone might not have so dang many! And then, like you said, made special ones and allowed linking multiples (so they could sell even more) without ever (evidently) considering how many their system could actually support. Kinda crazy.

 

[cbg1027]

I would give the phone CMs a pass. For the reasons mentioned above and the fact that sometimes the technology can't handle certain problems - I'm sure when the Magic Band technology was introduced, no one one thought about people having 20+ bands, and how that might confuse the system and cause malfunctions. The failure I see here is Disney not fixing the issue once it came to light. I'm sure you're not the first or last person to have the issue.
The poor CMs on the phone just don't have the ability to fix a whole system issue. They can only trouble shoot workarounds.
I run in to these type of issues myself at work. I work at a bank that uses the cheapest, most outdated technology on a lot of our systems. And because of the constraints of the systems, I get just as frustrated as our clients do because neither I nor the client can do anything to fix the issues.

 

[tramps’lady]

I would give the phone CMs a pass. For the reasons mentioned above and the fact that sometimes the technology can't handle certain problems - I'm sure when the Magic Band technology was introduced, no one one thought about people having 20+ bands, and how that might confuse the system and cause malfunctions. The failure I see here is Disney not fixing the issue once it came to light. I'm sure you're not the first or last person to have the issue.
The poor CMs on the phone just don't have the ability to fix a whole system issue. They can only trouble shoot workarounds.
I run in to these type of issues myself at work. I work at a bank that uses the cheapest, most outdated technology on a lot of our systems. And because of the constraints of the systems, I get just as frustrated as our clients do because neither I nor the client can do anything to fix the issues.

just fired off an email to guest services as i just would rather not talk to anyone right now as I might start crying. i tend to get upset not angry. everybody i've talked to with one exception has been very helpful or at least tried to point me in the right direction. I know I would not want their jobs. I can only imagine what would be said by some others in my situation and would not want to be on the other end of that.

these things always happen on the weekend so you can stew about them til Monday
hopefully soon things will be back to normal and no reservations needed but I predict that will be a long time coming

 

[Cheburashka]

I've had two trips to the World and one to Vero Beach since this all started, and have found Disney customer service to be unaffected by the pandemic.

 

[Cynt]

Hope everything works out for you. It seems like the system isn't designed for people to have multiple (5, 10, 15+) reservations at a time.

 

[tramps’lady]

Hope everything works out for you. It seems like the system isn't designed for people to have multiple (5, 10, 15+) reservations at a time.

that what I have learned. it really freaks out the computers.

I got a call yesterday about an hour after my email was sent. Everything is looking OK from their end and the CM said the systems just don't talk to one another. I can make park pass reservations based on my resort stays but not on my AP as the AP system is seeing all the resort stays and saying nope, sorry. I would need to go in person to override in other words just show up at the gate but luckily no need.

I go a lot because we have the RV and a couple of friends and I go once a month for a vacation from Hubby's
I'm lucky I live close enough to do this and can. Really gives you time to enjoy the parks. and I don't have to cook which is always good

Can't wait til the park reservations system can go away excited to try park hopping next week.
I've learned to just go with the flow and make lemonade.